{"id":2366,"date":"2018-09-13T11:50:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2366"},"modified":"2018-09-13T11:50:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:50:31","slug":"not-easy-reading-but-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2366","title":{"rendered":"Not easy reading – but important"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Dillon, a veteran journalist, reviews two books that offer serious food for thought \u2013 one an investigative examination of Donald Trump\u2019s business dealings with Russia, and the other a primer on dealing with tyranny.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Tom Dillon<\/p>\n

TRUMP\/RUSSIA: A DEFINITIVE HISTORY.<\/strong>By Seth Hettena. Melville House. 254 pages, $27.99.<\/p>\n

ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.<\/strong>By Timothy Snyder. Tim Duggan Books. 127 pages, $8.99 paperback<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There are no two ways about it. These books are going to make some people really angry. Others are going to be skeptical, and still others will dismiss them entirely \u2013 whether they take the time to read them or not.<\/p>\n

Trump\/Russia<\/em>, in the classic mode of good investigative journalism, is an exhaustive survey of Donald Trump\u2019s business career and the overseas alliances that he developed during it. It\u2019s not easy reading. There are so many characters and offshoots and subplots that one might think he is, with Alice, down some sort of rabbit-hole.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much about Donald Trump\u2019s casino failures in the 1990s and how \u201cdark sources\u201d \u2013 Russian money \u2013 brought about decades of deal-making with people all over the world, some above-board and many others not.<\/p>\n

Indeed, along with Vladimir Putin, the Russian \u201cmafiya\u201d \u2013 they spell it with a \u201cy\u201d \u2013 is a big part of this book. Seth Hettena quotes one unnamed researcher here as saying, \u201cWhenever you\u2019re offered a lot of money, better save some for legal fees.\u201d It\u2019s advice well taken. There\u2019s much more about underworld figures who took up residence in New York\u2019s Trump Tower.<\/p>\n

Along the way, the stories range from Paul Manafort\u2019s grooming of a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician to remove his rough edges to the throwing of the ice-skating competition at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. That was the result of collusion between Russian and French judges.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the attempt of an Azerbaijani real estate mogul to promote the career of a little-talented singer through the 2013 Miss Universe pageant \u2013 in a chapter titled \u201cMister Universe.\u201d Trump tweeted, \u201cDo you think Putin will be going to the Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow? If so, will he become my new best friend?\u201d Putin apparently didn\u2019t go.<\/p>\n

Hettena is a long-time investigative reporter for The Associated Press who earlier wrote Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy \u2018Duke\u2019 Cunningham, History\u2019s Most Corrupt Congressman<\/em>. For this book, he has talked to many people and perused an exhaustive list of documents and both published and unpublished reports.<\/p>\n

The publisher calls the book \u201can expansive and essential primer to the Trump\/Russia scandal.\u201d And it\u2019s a worthy read with good notes. Hettena, citing past investigations such as Bill Clinton\u2019s Whitewater and Richard Nixon\u2019s Watergate, predicts the Trump\/Russia controversy is going to be around for quite a while.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The second book is a small \u2013 126 pages \u2013 expansion of what was originally a Facebook post. In the book, which you can probably read in less than an hour, Yale University historian Timothy Snyder observes that Americans today \u201care no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the Twentieth Century.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur one advantage today is that we might learn from their experience,\u201d he says, and he posts 20 lessons, along with commentary. No. 1 is \u201cDo not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.\u201d No. 2 is \u201cDefend institutions,\u201d and No. 3 is \u201cBeware the one-party state.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not enough space here to list all 20 lessons, but some important ones are No. 6, \u201cBe wary of paramilitaries,\u201d or No. 10, \u201cBelieve in truth,\u201d or numbers 15 and 16, \u201cContribute to good causes\u201d and \u201cLearn from peers in other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snyder\u2019s last three lessons are perhaps the most touchingly heart-rending in the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe calm when the unthinkable arrives.\u201d (Remember Sept. 11.)<\/p>\n

\u201cBe a patriot. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBe as courageous as you can.\u201d Snyder concludes, as part of that last lesson, \u201cIf none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n